Warning: this week’s column is going to get ugly, and fast. We start with Choke, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, which is also a love letter to its star, Sam Rockwell — one written in shit and cum (I told you). First-time writer and director Clark Gregg, an actor (recently in Iron Man and weekly on The New Adventures of Old Christine) is not the first to swoon for Rockwell, the character actor extraordinaire who makes uneven pictures worth the effort: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and The Assassination of Jesse James (I doubt the rest of the title ever fit on a marquee) all benefit from his special madness. The general audience doesn’t get it: Outside of earlier, scene-stealing assignments in more successful Hollywood pictures like Galaxy Quest and The Green Mile, Rockwell is pretty much a flop indicator, a good actor whose presence virtually guarantees a kind word from critics, a look-see from his more dedicated fans, and a voyage to the bottom of the weekly grosses list, where he and Nicole Kidman often wave at each other.

Escape is possible — Robert Downey, Jr. may have come up for air for good — but Choke is unlikely to be it for Rockwell. And it’s partly his fault. The film is all Rockwell, all the time, and it gets tedious, like an iPod with only a few tunes to shuffle. I haven’t read the book, but the movie goes to black comedy extremes…not too extreme enough, though. A movie like Choke has to hit like a punch in the gut to make an impression, and this one pulls its punches. The shit and cum are implied. I never got the feeling that the R-rating was tested, or threatened, as it might have been in more transgressive hands. (more…)